Fast-Forward to the Future, Please

This is a strange era. We call it the age of progress and prosperity, even
though involution and destruction surround us. We point out the importance of
values, yet it is money and power we worship. Truth is our imperative; outright lies
clad in an attractive deception. We shine on the outside; our statements, however,
express the decay of our minds. Success is our religion, a place where no saint
gains ground. We keep up appearances, but we scream from the inside secretly
hoping that a better tomorrow is only a click away.
The world we live in is a sad place. Here, people are being judged by the
amount of their possessions rather than the amount of their virtues. The
deterioration of moral standards has been set off a long time ago; it was triggered
by an answer to the question “What do we want?” 1 What ensued was the most
diabolical of all words, a symbol of sheer avarice; a single word – “More.” 2 We
never knew what we are getting ourselves into. Later did we realize that we had
unleashed Hell itself.
In this triumphant world, freedom to fail is not granted everyone3.
Underachievers are pushed aside, shun; falling short is inadmissible. To be
successful, flawless, is all-the-rage nowadays. To achieve your goals at any cost, to
feed your ambition with the flesh of the defeated, that is the only victory worth
winning. The pause button is no longer an option. Our final goal is the top; an
abandoned Utopia.
The sacred concept of family has also been infected with the virus of
ambitiolia. A woman of today is primarily a businessperson and then a mother. She
yearns “to be called ambitious the way she wishes to be called beautiful and
bright.”4 To escape the fate of “a silent, decorative background,”5 there is nothing
she wouldn’t do. While striving for an elusive fulfillment, ambition-driven business-
moms switch on to the fast track and eventually progress up the rungs. They miss
out on the first smiles, the first steps, bedtime stories and evening baths, but that is
the price of success; a justifiable sacrifice. Consumed with our own

1
Heller, Karen, By Success Obsessed, The Reader, p.123
2
Heller, Karen, By Success Obsessed, The Reader, p.123
3
Zinsser, William, The Right to Fail, The Reader, p.132
4
Heller, Karen, By Success Obsessed, The Reader, p.122
5
Holmes, Janet, Women Talk Too Much, The Reader, p.48

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accomplishments, we fail to notice that an ambitious venture can also be starting a
family of our own. 6
What’s more, along with the corrosion of our minds, the blade of our words is
slowly rusting away. Originality and creativity have given way to staleness of
expression. We no longer search our mental dictionaries for new, strong, daring
terms that will convey a mind of our own. Instead, we let someone else “construct
sentences for us – even think our thoughts for us.” 7 Call me a sentimental archaist,8
but the point of having a language as a means of expressing yourself is now
completely lost.
On the other hand, our reluctance to face reality gave rise to another
linguistic cover-up; the art of bending the truth. Political language, fraught with
insincerity, represents the most vicious offspring of the phenomenon. Its followers
use phraseology which consists of “naming things without calling up mental
pictures of them.”9 Thus, declaring wars and killing people seems an acceptable
way of expressing dissatisfaction, corrupt politicians are presented as national
heroes and patriots. And the rest of us, safely tucked in the warmth of our own
hypocrisy, as if under hypnosis, nod our heads and conform. Inner shrieks are
muffled.
Life in this world is a continuous struggle for survival. Each day we have the
same enemy – ourselves; an opponent who knows us better than anyone. This
battle is like no other; the longer we fight, the harder is to win. Every moment this
whirlwind of setbacks and false illusions pulls us more and more in its bowels. Even
the most resilient of us find it hard not to succumb. All the rewind buttons in the
world wouldn’t help us now; the damage has been done. We surrender. Curled up
next to the carcass of humanity, we wait for a change so radical it equals a miracle;
we hope that the future will make the present-day problems a thing of the past.

6
Epstein, Joseph, The Virtues of Ambition, The Reader, p.383
7
Orwell, George, Politics and the English Language, The Reader, p.686
8
Orwell, George, Politics and the English Language, The Reader, p.680
9
Orwell, George, Politics and the English Language, The Reader, p.687